The cover of a 12-page advertising supplement included in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Iowan featured pictures of battered women and victims of rape, accompanied with the words “You can stop injustice.”

Contrary to what you’d expect, the contents of this packet were filled with extremist anti-abortion propaganda. This pamphlet, which was funded by the Human Life Alliance, made the absurd assertions, among others, that victims of rape and incest would be better off without the option of abortion and that Planned Parenthood is a eugenics organization.

There is a difference between a newspaper providing the space for an organization to logically express its point of view and a newspaper giving legitimacy to offensive and fanatical claims. The ad was blatantly trying to mislead readers. It took advantage of the faces and suffering of victims of rape, domestic violence, and racism, and used them for its own benefit.

A closer look at the newest publication of the Human Life Alliance shows that they’ve repackaged their old material into a new “newspaper,” this one claiming that giving up birth control and carrying your unwanted pregnancy to term, even if it was a result of rape, will now cure all of the evils of the world. Of course, aside from the cover, there doesn’t appear to be any actual mentions of domestic violence, homelessness, or sex trafficking, much less how their suggested actions can help prevent these social ills.

The cover of a 12-page advertising supplement included in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Iowan featured pictures of battered women and victims of rape, accompanied with the words “You can stop injustice.”

I’m pretty sure publicly identifying rape victims is illegal. Maybe someone can sue over it, get the jackasses to drop the campaign?

chanceofrainne

Unfortunately not. It’s just in extremely poor taste. The AP chooses not to report the names of rape victims out of respect for the victims’ privacy, unless they identify themselves.

prochoiceferret

Apparently, there are a lot of males at HLA who are unable to reproduce without the assistance of state-sanctioned rape.

I might pass on to them a suggestion to enlist at a sperm bank, but then… who the heck would ever want to have a baby with these losers??

(Which kind of proves the original point, alas)

forlife

The title of this article is a little offensive. I get that your point is you do not think raped women should be obliged to continue a pregnancy, but you could be more considerate of the many, many women who do have children concieved in rape. It is very hurtful to my friend to hear her daughter refered to as “her rapist’s baby” or “a rape baby”, as it is just as much her baby and it is dehumanizing to the child.

crowepps

Their insistence on trotting out the ugliest of their arguments convicts them with the words out of their own mouths. The logic that is absolutely convincing to a religious obsessive who considers women’s bodies worthless unless they are public utilities for the use of any male they can’t escape is outright repulsive to normal people who haven’t been brainwashed into believing pregnancy is a sacrament.

Normal people don’t believe for a second that forcing a woman to have her rapist’s baby is “therapeutic” in any other sense than religious abnegation and can see pretty clearly what it’s really about — ‘women who don’t keep themselves ‘pure’ deserve to be punished’.

Precisely this issue has led to the defeat of personhood bills even in states which are presumed to be strongly ProLife, such as Colorado, and it was also a strong contributor to the defeat of anti-abortion laws in South Dakota. Their insistence on continuing this kind of stupidity, along with their push to ban birth control and the absolutely idiotic ‘hospitals have a moral right to let women die’ bill, are energizing young people.

Sure, the average person says yes if a poll asks “do you consider yourself ProLife?” Then the average person ALSO says yes when asked “do you think abortion should stay legal?” There isn’t any contradiction there, because unlike anti-abortion fanatics, the average person has noticed that the women involved also have lives.

amyc2

I understand your taking offense, but I really couldn’t think of another way to put it. A rapist is a rapist, and in context to the “father” the baby, as a product of rape, would be a rapist’s baby. I myself am a “rapist’s baby”, although I didn’t know that until I was an adult, a few years ago I found out when I met my biological mother (I am adopted) and asked about my father–finding out that my mother had been raped, and I was conceived through that rape. I wish she had not had to go through what she did, but for her abortion was not a choice–her family was religious and made it perfectly clear what the only acceptable choice would be (as being a single mother was also not acceptable–no one offered any help for her to raise me)–and that “choice” was to surrender me for adoption.

I do not let the fact that I was conceived from rape define me, but it has made me even more vocal about women’s rights to abortion and parenting–and promoting non-coercive adoption. I do not want any woman to have to carry a child to term who was conceived from rape (or any reason really) just because she cannot afford it. I do not want to see any woman told that an adoptive family would be a better family just because they have money and a two-parent household–instead of letting her decide for herself what being a “better” parent is–and helping her acheive that.

I believe the title of the article is not meant to offend, or to insult anyone who was conceived through rape. It is simply the simplist way to put it–and even though I am the product of rape, I understand that that is not meant to belittle me or anyone else who was conceived that way. It is about giving women choices about what they want to do when faced with a hard situation, instead of limiting them for any reason.

I was not pro-choice until I became an adult, I was raised “pro-life” and extremely anti-abortion. My heart was changed, once my eyes were opened to reality–and now I am a pro-choice activist and will try to promote the availability of all choices to women, without coercion–abortion, adoption, and parenting.

crowepps

While I certainly can understand the impulse that led you to come here and complain on your friend’s behalf, because you ASSUME having someone talking about the fact her baby’s father was a rapist might get her upset, I think you should step back and let her speak for herself. Your sentimental assumption that it being “her baby too” has obliterated her memory of the rape and rapist might be incorrect.

The fact that she’s apparently sharing with her friends that her child was conceived during a rape seems to indicate that she’s dealt with the issue. Which will be a big help to her when the child’s playmates pass along their mother’s gossip to the children in question, and she/he comes and asks “was my daddy a rapist?”

The problem with sweeping the whole issue under the rug because “the innocent children” will be hurt is that first, the innocent children have already been irreparably hurt by the circumstances of their conception with 100% of that harm the responsibility of the rapist, and second, implying that having a rapist for a father is just as good as any other origin seems to reduce the role of “father” to “sperm donor”.

crowepps

From what I’ve seen of ProLife propaganda, the photos probably aren’t actual real victims at all but instead models or stock photos. Advertising firms aren’t eager to get in trouble by using the faces of REAL women without permission. I’m sure any of us could go through the “free photos” files on the internet for likely looking women, put “Abducted by Aliens” or “Was Elvis Her Father” under them, and claim they were The Truth!

It is really interesting to me how, when ProLife extremists have demonstrated over and over and over again everything they say is flat out LIES, each new wave of propaganda is STILL presumed to be truthful until ProChoice activists go through each and every element in it and specifically debunk it by providing the facts.

amyc2

Agreed. I’m tired of men getting away with (or being encouraged to) being seen as little more than a sperm donor. Yes, when I have children I realize it will be my body that has to endure the birth, and ultimately, my decision of when to have children (thankfully I am in that position, my husband and I have discussed abortion and while we both agree we would have one right now, he understands that ultimately, it is my decision.) Even though all of that is true, he does not want to be a father in the sense of “I fathered a child”, he wants to be just as responsible for the well-being of his future children as I am.

Having a rapist as a father is NOT as good as any other origin in my view. I wish that when I asked the question that I’m sure my mother knew was coming when I found her (“Can you tell me about my father?”) she had told me something different–I had always imagined a different story growing up. I dreamed of finding my mother, always wanted to know where I came from, where my roots were…and my dreams did not include finding out my mother was raped–and that I was the result.

A father is a father, a rapist is a rapist. I am not a father’s child, I am a rapist’s child. I can’t deny that, but I can use my knowledge to work for equality and reproductive rights so that maybe someone else can be helped. I do not use the fact that I was carried to term as a reason why all rape victims should do the same.

princess-jourdan

You make an excellent point, crowepps. My old grandmother is as Conservative and Victorian as it gets. She’s anti-sex-before-marriage and anti-elective abortion…yet she is all for women using birth control, terminating pregnancies resulting from rape and incest, terminating pregnancies that present a risk to the mother or fetus, and saving the mother’s life at all costs. My Puritanical grandmother has enough sense to know that women’s lives matter, yet these other people don’t. That just stuns me!

crowepps

I wish that when I asked the question that I’m sure my mother knew was coming when I found her (“Can you tell me about my father?”) she had told me something different–

Consider thoughtfully that the answer she gave you explained away two other issues absolutely vital to HER self-image — it was proof she wasn’t ‘promiscuous’ and it also made her decision to surrender for adoption totally no-fault, even ‘noble’.

I believe the whole ‘conceived through rape’ meme is very, very unhealthy. I don’t think people who want to adopt should have an attitude that disrespects the biological mother and when adoption agencies use ‘she was raped’ as a ‘not a slut/not selfish’ character reference a lack of respect is in the root of it. People who NEED additional information about the mother beyond ‘chose to complete pregnancy and surrender baby for adoption’ aren’t psychologically healthy enough to be good adoptive parents.

plume-assassine

I do not use the fact that I was carried to term as a reason why all rape victims should do the same.

Thank you, amyc2.

Like any other pregnancy, I believe that the decision to carry to term is up to the individual woman. Personally, if I was raped and found myself pregnant, and forced to carry to term, I would feel that I was being raped a second time. I know that there are women who differ on what they would do in such a scenario, and that’s fine, as long as their decision is not forced on others. It is extremely violating to already-vulnerable women to tell them that they must in all circumstances be a martyr and give birth to their rapist’s child, and “just” give him/her up for adoption. It’s not so easy.

colleen

and this advertising campaign are deeply offensive to most people. Y’all could be a great deal more considerate of rape victims and stop trying to force us to carry the pregnancies that result from rape or incest to term. You could also teach your menfolk and clergy to stop raping other people.

amyc2

Not sure I understand this comment…

I don’t care if my mother was promiscuous, and I don’t believe she wanted to give me up–I understand that some women do, but my mother suffered for years after giving me up, and had been hoping I’d contact her for a long time after I turned 18 (closed adoption). In fact, her whole family knew about me–they had pictures of me and I’ve met most of my half-siblings and will hopefully eventually meet more.

When I say I wish I had heard something else (that she wasn’t raped) I don’t mean for myself. I wish she hadn’t had to go through something like that, and meeting your mom and having to hear what they went through, and that it’s why you are here, it’s hard at first.

You don’t know my mother, so please don’t judge her. I wish she’d been given other choices, but she wasn’t.

The last paragraph I don’t understand even remotely. My parents (adoptive) don’t know anything about the rape. I haven’t told them. I have no idea what my parents were told when they adopted me. All I ever heard was the standard (protestant) explanation for adopted kids–“you were made by God in someone else for us to raise”. I now think that’s utter B.S.–my mom is more than a uterus used by “god” to give them a baby.

I agree that adopting parents shouldn’t need to know anything about the mother–although I’m not sure that most people at all are mentally prepared for being good adoptive parents. Mine were paper-perfect parents, but when it came to addressing the serious attachment issues I developed, major fear of rejection, and depression, it was all prayed off (by my adoptive parents) and given no thought. I don’t think they ever acknowledged that I might need counseling to address my feelings over being adopted–although now that I’m an adult I have pursued it.

So yeah, I just really don’t understand what exactly you are saying, and what you are referring to that I said. I think adoption is a very coercive process for the most part (I have a cousin who got pregnant and despite the fact that she was offered family support, the counselors (CPC) tried to talk her into adoption, they told her she wouldn’t be a good enough parent), and many adoption sites I’ve been to say similar things to “prospective” “birthmothers” (they call them birthmothers on the websites, I don’t really like the term”). My own experience with adoption has left my feelings about it very conflicted, but I know the system needs to be changed somehow.

(by the way, when I say “mother” I am referrencing my biological mother. If I mean to talk about my adoptive parents I’ll say so)

Also, what’s wrong with ME “needing” additional information about my mother? Do you know what it’s like to feel like a black sheep in the family, and to always wonder where you come from, if your biological family is like you…if anyone out there in the world looks like you? As a kid (and sometimes even as an adult) those things are hard. I needed to find my mother, I wanted to meet her, and I had to give her the chance to want to meet me. How would I feel if I never found her, and she waited her whole life? A closed adoption means she might never have found me if she tried herself, which she had online, as much as she could. My birth certificate was hidden away and I was given a new one. She didn’t know my name. I became a new person–how odd it felt to see my original birth certificate (when I met my mom) and see a different name and a different mother. How is that legal to redo a birth certificate? I have nothing against my parents but it is odd to me that they are listed as my biological parents on my birth certificate.

I’m still confused about it all, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ok with everything, nor will I ever know if my mom will be ok with it all. I’ll never know if I’ll get over my fear of rejection, that is so bad that I have rarely had friends, I’m too afraid to make them because I’m afraid they’ll leave me. Adoption is complicated. It doesn’t fit into a nice, neat paragraph.

crowepps

You are the expert on your own adoption, your own mother and your own reaction, and certainly I’m not qualified to comment on any of those things in particular. Please accept my sincere apology if my poor word choices led you to believe I was judging your mother in any way whatsoever. I should have made clearer that I was speaking in sympathy for the position in which she was placed and not criticizing.

I should have made clear I was speaking more generally on the basis of conversations I have had with people who did adopt and who felt compelled to share information with me about how the mother of their child wasn’t this/that/the other. Personally, I think any person who is lucky enough to adopt a child owes the mother an enormous debt which they can never repay and they should speak of her only in terms of respect and gratitude.

prochoiceferret

Which is why it’s the first question I like to ask of one. “Do you support allowing abortion in the case of rape? (or incest?)”

Yes: “Oh, so I guess your side was kidding about that whole innocent-human-lives-being-murdered thing. Or do you ascribe to the medieval-era belief that a child is responsible for the sins of its parents?”

No: “You’re not too big on this whole ‘civilization’ thing, are you?”

amyc2

Thanks for making it clear. Sometimes the web is very unhelpful in deciphering others’ comments! I agree that those who adopt owe so much…

equalist

As a birthmother to a son who was adopted at birth, and mother to a daughter conceived through rape who I’m raising, I’m honestly a little bothered by the idea that adoptive parents don’t need to know anything about the birthmother of their child. I was more than happy to give any and all information they wanted to the adoptive parents of my son. I wanted them to know me as well as possible in the six months we had to get to know each other before his birth, so that they could in turn tell him about me. Fortunately, I still have contact with my son as his family, and we all have a close relationship, so my son is learning about me, my family, and our history through us, but this isn’t always the case. Either the adoptive parents, or the birthmother may feel uncomfortable with this kind of arrangement, and that should be respected.

As for my daughter, she has no idea that she was conceived the way she was, and in fact, only a handful of people closest to me (and you here who have read my posts on this subject before) are aware of the situation. Granted, she’s only three years old, but I’ve made the decision that as much as I can help it, I won’t let her be negatively affected by her birth. My fiance and I are teaching both her and her sister that they make their own value in life. It isn’t something assigned to them by someone else. The circumstances of their birth has no more to do with who they are than the color of their hair and eyes. What’s important is their hearts, their souls, and their value as human beings. They haven’t started asking questions about him yet, but when they do, we’re going to be open and honest with them about their sperm donor in an age appropriate way while emphasizing that they are each their own person and the knowledge of what kind of person he was doesn’t change that, or make them any different than they were five minutes, five hours, five days, or five years before they found out.

arekushieru

Amy, while I myself am not adopted, your experiences remind me why I so passionately believe that adoptions should remain open, that women (and men) who relinquish a child should not be coerced, in any way, shape or form and should receive more than merely adequate compensation, that relinquishment should be recognized and treated as the uniquely sensitive cirumstance it is through all the counselling and support that ultimately relinquishing parent(s) may require, that adopted childrens’ needs require more than a sense of who they are, they also require a sense of who those they came from are and that identifying a parent (adopted or relinquishing) should be addressed on equal footing, meaning they should both be identified by more than a snapshot of one aspect of their lives in relation to the child.

Through relatives and friends I have encountered many perspectives of this multi-faceted issue, but I do not believe it makes me an expert… far from it. I am simply adding my voice to an issue that all too often falls by the wayside and hoping that an awareness of this will let others feel less alone.

arekushieru

But, apparently, only responsible for the sins of the male donor.

crowepps

I’m honestly a little bothered by the idea that adoptive parents don’t need to know anything about the birthmother of their child

I didn’t say some information might not be USEFUL to the adoptive parents. The more information they have, the better, particularly when it comes to heritable things. Instead I said that I think people who REQUIRE the information because they feel entitled to judge the CHARACTER of the birth mother are not likely to be good adoptive parents.

Personally, I think all adoptions should be open adoptions, because that is an excellent up front test of whether the people receiving the child truly are willing to put the child’s needs first. Adoption is not supposed to be about meeting the needs of the adoptive parents.

sayna

That’s how I’ve always treated it, too. It’s a no-win situation for them. You’re either heartless or a hypocrite.

ella-hedgepeth

Rape is a crime and the rapist should be prosecuted if he is found.

Abortion is another violent act. By having an abortion, a women is committing murder. Abortion never takes away the rape.

The child does not deserve to die for the sins of the father. What other crime punishes one of the crime victims with death? Both the mother and child are the victims.

The child is still a person and the mother will love the child if she lets herself. It is her child, too, not just the child of a rapist. Many women are glad they did not abort their child for any reason.

Abortion is against natural motherly love.

I have five biological children and two adopted children. A child is a child no matter how small and no matter the circumstances of conception.

joelbrind

I have to say I agree with Ella Mae. Unlike many pro-life people, I believe that capital punishment should be legal. However, it should be reserved for the most guilty. How ironic that so many who believe in legalized abortion oppose capital punishment for the most guilty, yet believe in capital punishment for the most innocent–those not yet even born.

And as for caring about women, let’s cut through the rhetoric and admit that all of us care about women. My question is, just when are women worth caring about? Only after puberty, or only after birth? One need look no further than China’s “one child policy” or widespread cultural practices in India to see that girls are often viewed as worthless, even after birth, and are routinely aborted or executed upon birth. Now those two nations have surpluses of young men over women in the tens of millions. Think that will improve treatment of grown women and decrease the incidence of rape?

plume-assassine

Abortion is not murder. 1/3 of American women are not murderers. If you are claiming that abortion is a violent act akin to murder, do you think that a woman should be in prison for having an abortion after being raped?

Like I said above, if I had been forced to give birth to a rapist’s child, I would feel that my body had been raped and violated a second time.

Trying to prevent pregnant rape victims from accessing abortion is essentially condoning the violent act of rape as a legitimate sexual act, and it sends the message that women under all circumstances, must allow a rapist to propogate his genes through her, whether she likes it or not. If I ever found myself in such a scenario, abortion would be my defense against another violation to my body.

The “mother will love the child if she lets herself”? What exactly are you trying to say? It sounds to me as though you are saying that any unwilling woman should be convinced and forced to love their pregnancy as a result of rape. I hope you realize how creepy this sounds. Yes, There are some women who are glad they did not abort after being raped, but there are probably just as many, if not more women who see a pregnancy as a sickening reminder of their violation.

Abortion is against natural motherly love.

Um, no, pregnancy does not automatically make one a “mother.” Oh, and women do not all come with a “natural motherly love.” I respect women who choose motherhood, even though I, for one, entirely lack any sort of motherly instict.

goatini

1. A single cell fertilized egg is NOT a “child”.

2. EVERY woman should be offered emergency contraception after a rape. If she foolishly wants to refuse it, she can do so, but she SHOULD have the choice.

3. If it is too late, then EVERY woman should be promptly and compassionately offered menstrual extraction, early chemical termination, or early surgical termination after a rape. If she foolishly wants to refuse it, she can do so, but she SHOULD have the choice.

I strongly believe that if the woman is forced to bear the criminal rapist’s spawn, THE RAPIST HAS WON. He has gotten to perpetuate his deficient criminal gene pool. And if people like you had your way in the current War On Women in the US, he’d be able to sue for custody, visitation and parental rights too.

I hope your daughters are intelligent enough to resist the brainwashing that you’ve had, and that you’ve tried to force on them. I strongly believe that NO woman should EVER bear a rapist’s spawn – the very fact that they DO bear a rapist’s spawn is part of what encourages this scum to do their crimes. THEY KNOW THEY CAN WIN, thanks to people like you.

People like you are more interested in protecting the “rights” of the rapist and the “rights” of a single cell fertilized egg from a defective gene pool, over the RIGHTS of the female US citizen whose civil and Constitutional rights are violated, first by the criminal assault, and then by the forced slavery of bearing the criminal’s spawn.

I’m so angry I could spit nails right now. How DARE you defend the rapist’s “right” to reproduce his criminal gene pool on an innocent crime victim???? Absolutely disgusting.

goatini

Anyone who does not fully support a woman’s right to choose when, where, and with whom to get pregnant, does NOT care about women, except to use as livestock.

Every child deserves to be a wanted child, and every woman deserves to plan her family in exactly the way she wants to plan it.

Either women are full citizens, or they are chattel, second-class citizens, livestock, property. You do NOT “care about women”, and I’ll spend the next 40 years fighting for women’s equality against people like you, just like I spent the last 40 years.

plume-assassine

Unlike many pro-life people, I believe that capital punishment should be legal

Don’t fool yourself, honey. You’re just like any other hypocrite “pro-lifer” who values embryonic and fetal life more than an actual person. How is that pro-life cognitive dissonance working out for you, knowing that you support state-sanctioned murder in prisons? Does murdering a murderer show society that murder is wrong?

Oh, and another thing, a fetus does not have the capacity to be either innocent or guilty.

One need look no further than China’s “one child policy” or widespread cultural practices in India to see that girls are often viewed as worthless, even after birth, and are routinely aborted or executed upon birth.

One need look no further than the “pro-lifer’s” so-called value of women to see that they view women as worthless incubators, who must be forced to give birth under any circumstances. Forced birth is rape and it is a human rights violation. And what you are referring to specifically in China is forced abortion, which is also a human rights violation against women. They are just as anti-choice as the American “pro-lifers.”

Birth is the marker of entrance into personhood. Equating a fetus to the status of adult woman is insulting and depersonalizing. Actually, what you are doing is granting more importance to insentient fetal life than a little girl or woman’s life, because apparently her suffering (MY suffering) does not matter.

saltyc

The child does not deserve to die for the sins of the father.

OK, the baby shouldn’t die for the crime of the rapist, but why is it the rape victim’s responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen? Why does the pregnant girl or woman have the obligation to sacrifice the life she wanted and her health to pay for the crime of the rapist?

Do even understand my question?

Clue: that she’s the only one who can is not a good enough reason.

You “pro-lifers” don’t have an answer for that one, becuase you never even wonder. You never consider the enormity of what you expect from women.

The child is still a person and the mother will love the child if she lets herself.

Really? Ever know someone who did really not love their child? Reality is much bigger and varied than you can even imagine.

goatini

voting the rating down on my post. You and your criminal rapist pals stay classy.

Forced Birthers: A Rapist’s Best Friend

ack

While I appreciate the consistency in your position, I think you are horribly, horribly wrong.

The child is still a person and the mother will love the child if she lets herself. It is her child, too, not just the child of a rapist.

The “child” would be a person. The fetus is not.

Had I become pregnant from the time man raped me, I would have had an abortion. If I had been prevented from having a safe abortion, I would have found a way to induce one. So, no. The woman will NOT necessarily feel love. Forcing someone to complete a pregnancy that starts in a rape is absolutely another rape. You realize you’d be forcing her to endure physical and emotional distress for nine months, culminating in pushing an 8 pound fetus out of her vagina, which universally results in tearing and the single most excruiciating pain most women will ever experience?

Explain to me how that isn’t rape.

ack

We shouldn’t abort female fetuses because it’ll increase the number of rapists?

emm

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crowepps

what color was the skin of your abortionist?

Although the bigoted statement specificially implying White doctors are committing genocide is new. Did the Pope or Randall Terry send out a new set of bumpersticker slogans?

ack

1. It’s human. That doesn’t make it a human being.

2. Pregnancy is significantly more risky than abortion. The breast cancer link has been universally denounced by scientists. You can find plenty of brilliant and accessible posts on this site with thorough explanations.

3. If every child is a wanted child, why are so many kids in foster care? Oh, that’s right. They’re not white. Or they have disabilities. Or they’re not infants anymore.

4. Look into the risks of pregnancy. Yes, she’s sacrificing her health, and potentially her life.

5. If women of color have abortions at higher rates, it’s because of inherent racism in our society that doesn’t give them the same opportunities as their white counterparts. It’s not some horrific plot by abortion providers, it’s about systemic oppression. Women of color experience poverty at greater rates than white women; maybe addressing THAT would reduce abortion rates in communities of color?

6. I hope you vote Democratic, because all those “pro-life” Republicans in the House voted to eliminate WIC. It stands for “Women, Infants, and Children,” and it’s a program that helps women feed their kids. Across the board, women are being targeted by funding cuts to health care and social services. Those programs help women carry wanted pregnancies to term.

Additionally, from what I’ve read, CPCs pressure women and girls into carrying a pregnancy, then pressure them into giving the child to a nice white christian family. That’s not kind or non-judgemental. It’s deceptive and cruel.

ack

Not to mention that the differences in the numbers of doctors who are white vs. doctors who are people of color appears to have been completely lost on her. 10% of physicians are racial minorities. THAT’S racism. We are NOT all born on an equal playing field.

goatini

1. A single cell fertilized egg is NOT a child, a person, or a human being. It is a single-celled organism that has less than 20% chance of even getting implanted in the uterine wall, much less making it to full term. Anyone who thinks that a single celled organism should have “rights” that erase the rights of a living, breathing female US citizen is anti-American and anti-woman.

2. The very idea that rape victims can’t get pregnant, that safe, medical abortion is MORE dangerous than pregnancy, and that abortion causes breast cancer, are just more ignorant filthy anti-woman lies.

3. The crimes of the multi-billion dollar human trafficking industry of exploitation of women and children called “adoption” are too multitudinous to enumerate here. And how disgusting to use the body of another person for your personal gain. Women are not baby ovens for people who “want to adopt”. And there are PLENTY of children for adoption. Just not the white and delightsome infant kind that your kind thinks they are entitled to.

4. Who the hell are you to force someone to sacrifice almost a year of her life just so human traffickers can profit from her misery? And “not sacrificing her health”? Did you even look at the link recently posted here today about a woman, who gave birth to a very wanted child, incurred sepsis while in the hospital delivering her child, and LOST HER ARMS AND LEGS? Or what about my dear friend who ALMOST DIED AT 9 MONTHS PREGNANCY due to hypertensive eclampsia, and who was in a coma and seizing for days after she gave birth? “Pregnancy is not an illness”, my @ss.

5. Not even going there, you evil racist scum.

6. Every woman deserves and requires unfettered access to birth control, emergency contraception, menstrual extraction, chemical termination, and surgical termination. If you attempt to prevent a woman from accessing these services, there is NOTHING “non-judgemental” or “kind” about deliberate judgemental and unkind behavior towards women.

You are a disgusting excuse for a human being, you racist, misogynist PIG.

plume-assassine

it is a human being all through the nine months of development

Biologically human, yes. Person or being? No.

it does not turn into a train, eagle or walleye.

Right, it becomes a child. Birth is the marker of entrance into personhood.

There are too many complications resulting from abortion

It’s been proved that abortion is safer than childbirth. Have you ever considered the complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth, including death of the woman? But of course, that would not mean that all women should stop having babies.

and breast cancer due to the sudden and unnatural end to a pregnancy.

This is a lie and has been debunked many times. The scientific community has concluded that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. See: the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Every child IS a wanted child- ao many couples want to adopt but can’t due to the number of abortions.

I am NOT an incubator for an infertile couple that wants to adopt!

The mother may only be ‘sacrificing’ or GIVING her life for 9 months

Um, no, it’s not GIVING if I’m being FORCED to gestate a fetus for 9 months! I would consider that a 2nd rape if it happened to me and I would be psychologically scarred for life. And, no, I refuse to be a martyr and sacrifice my life or health for an unwanted pregnancy that results from RAPE.

There are more blacks dying at the hands of abortionists than by AIDS, cancer, heart disease and diabetes, combined.

More lies.

This is called genocide. If you are an African American female and had an abortion, what color was the skin of your abortionist?

No. The Holocaust during WWII is genocide. Abortion is not genocide, and American women are not committing genocide. It is insulting and degrading to victims of actual genocide for you to make such a comparison! Also, Are you advancing the racist belief that Black women are being duped by white people into abortion because they are too naive to know anything about their bodies? Or are you saying that Black women are perpetuating “”genocide”” against their own race?

I have heard many testimonies from women who have conceived through rape, and some of them feel that having the child can bring tremendous healing, even if they give this child up for adoption. Others who did have the abortion have felt like a new pain was added to what was already a horrible situation. Abortion seemed to be the right answer, and maybe the only way out. But abortion feeds off desperation. I stand behind people who do try to love the whole woman, and show women that there is hope. For many people, abortion adds an entirely new wound. A woman may know that she’s not responsable for the rape that was done to her, but they do feel the tremendous guilt that comes along with abortion.

I hesitate to call it “pro-choice”, because so many times you seem to be fighting for abortion. But the pro-abortion stance always makes it sound like abortion is about a child that will be here one day, but a pregnancy signifies the life of a child that is here already.

“Abortion is the taking of a life.”

-- Former Planned Parenthood Medical Director
Mary Calderone, who is pro-choice [American
Journal of Public Health]

ack

The fact that some women choose to give birth after rape, or abort and feel regret, does not negate the experience of women who abort and feel relief. Rape is an act of power. The victim has no choice. The healing process centers on providing options, discussing the potential outcome of those options, and letting the victim decide for herself.

Pro-choicers fight for the right, among other things, for each female to decide for herself whether she will carry a pregnancy to term. We’re not “pro-abortion.” We’re pro-trusting-women.

Another graduate of the Roger Ailes School of Journalism. Because when you have nothing, you have to make it up.

crowepps

Your observations of what other women are feeling and thinking are interesting, and hopefully will be of assistance to you in making up your own mind about what you want to do in the event that a terrible thing like that happens to you. It would be interesting to look at studies to see whether women always feel “tremendous guilt”.

Hmmm, interesting, in Europe, no guilt — in Asia, no guilt — in eastern Europe, where abortion was PREFERRED over birth control, nobody feels guilty at all, because there isn’t anybody insisting that’s how women SHOULD feel. Apparently the guilt is caused not by abortion but instead by religious fanatics.

hesitate to call it “pro-choice”, because so many times you seem to be fighting for abortion. But the pro-abortion stance always makes it sound like abortion is about a child that will be here one day, but a pregnancy signifies the life of a child that is here already.

Actually you are reluctant to call it “pro-choice” because you’re an ideologue who prefers to demonize your opponents. Nobody here is “fighting for abortion” but instead for the right of women to make their own choices.

The last sentence makes no sense. I’ve been pregnant four times. I had two live children and two miscarriages. I never, EVER took it for granted that a pregnancy was “a child that is here already” because I knew there was a 50-50 chance the fetus would be lost for no identifiable reason, and as the pious felt compelled to point out, the cause of that death would be God, who needed those deaths as part of His mysterious secret PLAN that nobody understands.

I have a suggestion, maybe you could accept that the fact other people do things YOU don’t approve of is ALSO part of one of His mysterious secret plans, maybe to get you to stop being so judgmental.

janle

+

Dear Beloved Children of God,

Each child that comes into being at the moment of conception is a child made in the image and likeness of a merciful God – a God who has loved each one of us into being – a God who wants each one of us to have a chance at Life – the greatest gift that can be given.

Each one of us knows in our deepest hearts that abortion is wrong. Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being and scars the mother (and all involved) for a lifetime.

The information HLA publishes is accurate. Many of its figures are taken from the Alan Guttmacher Institute – the research arm of Planned Parenthood.

Abortion isn’t about a woman’s choice to do as she wishes with her body – abortion is about allowing a woman legally to do as she wishes with her baby’s body – and that’s not right. No one of us has the right to take the life of an innocent human being – reagrdless of the stage of development of that human being, regardless of their sex, race, or level of abilities – regardless of whether it’s “legal” or not.

Abortion hurts women – and all of society. Look at all that is coming to light about the way abortion clinics are being run (just Google Gosnell and murder).

It’s time to stop buying the lie that abortion helps women. It doesn’t. My friends, it does just the opposite.

crowepps

I find it difficult to express to you just how deeply insulting I find your post.

You do not speak for God and your self-appointment as preacher, judge and moral arbiter is repugnant. You do not speak for anyone but yourself.

You are not our friend and your language is patronizing. Your attempt to guilt trip strangers to shame and blame them into being cooperative little uteruses for the patriarchy to use up is vile.

You want this type of abortion to go away? Go talk to the men. Eliminate rape and incest so they’re not necessary.

beenthere72

I am equally offended by your post. Keep your bible out of my uterus.

Gosnell is a vile man and a murderer. He does not represent the majority of abortion doctors who perform safe abortions and help women, not hurt them as he did.

I’ve had 2 abortions, the last one 15 years ago. I am not scarred nor hurt. Nobody else suffered because of my abortions which were had as soon as I figured out I was pregnant after missing one period.

I’ve had a man threaten to kill me if I became pregnant by him and yet continuously forced himself on me without protection. Though I finally found the strength and courage to eliminate him from my life, and appreciate the access to the morning after pill, it disgusts and appalls me that the likes of you think I should be forced to have that asshole’s baby and be forced to associate with him for the rest of that child’s life.

freetobe

equally defend the abolishment of the death penalty,the wars( now almost totaling three.) invitro fertilization???

Do you go on those sites and preach to them?

I never hear or see anyone outside of the pentagon picketing and shaming them?

I never see anyone outside those fetility clinics picketing and shaming them?

You are a hypocrite just like the rest.

This is about controlling women PERIOD. How dare you come on here and preach this controlling crap!!!

freetobe

who cares!

This is not about abortion this IS about the right for a woman to control her OWN life without the churches or the Government or the states laws trying to turn us into chattel again.

Women regardless of what you think are HUMAN BEINGS got it?

WE control what happens to our own bodies NOT YOU!

GET LOST!!

ack

Thank you for sharing your story. It’s so important for people who have ideological stances about rape and abortion to realize that survivors need options in deciding how to proceed after the rape. We deserve options. They cannot say, “Oh, it’s just nine months.” Or, “You’ll love it if you let yourself!”

They cannot ignore us by placing the interests of a ZBEF above ours. They don’t get to silence us.

The fact that this thread has become so contentious is deplorable to me. There are plenty of other articles on this site to comment on, but they’ve ignored those and latched on to the article about victims of rape and abuse.

ack

This is so patronizing it actually made me laugh.

beenthere72

I never thought I’d be telling it in defense of our rights to options in such a situation.

I always feel women are completely ignored in these conversations unless it’s to label us whores or murderers deserving our own deaths. Such a compassionate group, eh?

loveofmylife1

“The victim has no choice.”

This is exactly why I am pro-life. You guys are making this about the rapist, when it is not. HLA, and many pro-lifers are not that way because we care about the rapist. Tell me THAT is not demonizing the “other side”. Iin the case of rape (and incest) which makes up, what, like 3-5% TOPS of all abortions, the woman certainly was victimized. No question, and I am so sorry for people faced with that terrible situation.

But anytime abortion occurs, the baby is ALWAYS the victim.

The choice for each female to make decisions for herself should also include even the smallest females. Feminist thinking becomes nothing but a contradiction when you start arguing this point.

plume-assassine

The choice for each female to make decisions for herself should also include even the smallest females. Feminist thinking becomes nothing but a contradiction when you start arguing this point.

OH PUH-LEEZE. I have heard this so many times and it is utterly ridiculous. There is NOTHING feminist about forcing women to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term! Especially if it results from rape!

And what is it with you guys trying to claim that an insentient fetus is the same thing as a little girl or adult woman (how insulting) that must be “protected” under all circumstances, at the expense of the woman? In fact, what you are doing is valuing embryonic/fetal life MORE than actual people.

squirrely-girl

… means all of the atheists, agnostics, and people who simply believe in the separation of church and state don’t give two shits about the rest of your post.

If you can’t make your argument without invoking His name, you have failed.

ack

For me, this isn’t about the rapist. It’s about the rape victim. Advocacy 101 for sexual assault survivors says that you offer information and options, then support her decision making. It’s crucial to healing, whether that decision is about seeking counseling, filing a police report, pursuing a conviction, filing for divorce, or what to do about a pregnancy that results from the assault. (The only exception concerns victims under the age of 18; there are legal obligations to file a report for people in certain professions.)

For you, this is about the fetus. I don’t think this is about the rape victim OR the rapist for you. You’re willing to ignore the wishes of women and girls who have been victimized. You’re also ignoring the fact that forcing them to continue an unwanted pregnancy is a clear violation of her bodily autonomy all over again. It makes you consistent in your ideology, but it’s a position that inherently lacks compassion for rape victims.

The OP is about women and girls who become pregnant from rape, so the percentage over overall abortions represented is irrelevant. There is a multitude of other posts on this site addressing abortions of pregnancies that didn’t result from rape.

arekushieru

There is NOTHING feminist about forcing women to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term! Especially if it results from rape!

Especially when you consider that this would be just as contradictory if you used the argument about organ donation. Shouldn’t an organ recipient get the same right to make decisions for themselves, that they proselytize so much about, then? But, of course, I forget that this isn’t about life, but about punishment. My bad.

Besides, the ‘smallest female’ doesn’t make the decision to be born, either. So, they’re rather contradicting themselves, there, too.

saltyc

4. “Why does the pregnant girl or woman have the obligation to sacrifice the life she wanted and her health to pay for the crime of the rapist” The mother may only be ‘sacrificing’ or GIVING her life for 9 months (certainly NOT sacrificing her health- pregnancy is not an illness) and can then give birth to a healthy child and keep going with the lifestyle she had before. Most young girls become moms too young and are destined to a life of perpetual poeverty by keeping the child and not giviing it a mother and a father. Both the baby and mother can have better lives by giving brith the the child, then adoption.

You did not answer my question, of why is it the rape victim’s responsibility to make sure that “a baby doesn’t pay for the sins of its father.” You only minimized the actual sacrifice of carrying a pregnancy to term.

Keep going with the lifestyle she had before?? Most women who seek abortions have to work hard to maintain their lives, and struggle to improve themselves. If a woman gets pregnant before the very start of a new employment, or in a crucial juncture in her life, she may well have to forego opportunities that won’t knock again. It can significantly change the direction of her life and make impossible her own plan for taking care of herself and her family. Your minimizing of women’s real-life choices is a huge flaw in your perspective. Not to mention your minimizing of the physical toll pregnancy takes on women that often can’t be mitigated. And if giving up a baby to another family were such a great thing, why is it the last choice that pregnant women make? But when you ask yourself that, also take into account, that women do make intelligent decisions for themselves, and are not sexual pawns or licentious slobs. I have spoken to several women, who, due to their beliefs, gave up a baby for adoption, but became pregnant again and this time had an abortion. Because you, sir, can’t imagine facing giving up a baby to someone else. Yes, choosing not to bring it into the world is for some women a better choice than turning its care over to strangers. And personally speaking, I would certainly not want to give a baby to an evangelical or pro-life family, because I know how they are likely to treat a teenager experimenting with a life that was not proscribed by their pastor.

kj

I don’t believe in your god. I also happen to live in a country that believes in seperation of church and state, therefore your god doesn’t get a vote in what happens to my body. I don’t think abortion is wrong.

As to “Abortion isn’t about a woman’s choice to do as she wishes with her body – abortion is about allowing a woman legally to do as she wishes with her baby’s body – and that’s not right,” pregancy involves a woman’s body. It can’t not involve a woman’s body. And women aren’t chattel. We have rights. If someone is hooked up to me for life support with out my permission, then I have the right to pull the tubes that connect our bodies out- even if it kills the other person. Becasue it is my body. My choice. The end.

And abortion does help women- many women would die without access to abortion. Others would have their chance at sucess taken away if they got pregnant. There are many reasons women choose abortion but all of their choices are valid.

plume-assassine

Thank you, KJ. Well-said and very true

chooselife19

A woman completely has the right to choose what she wants to do with her own body.

Especially if she’s still in the womb.

prochoiceferret

A woman completely has the right to choose what she wants to do with her own body.

Especially if she’s still in the womb.

Are you suggesting that a woman still in the womb is in any way capable of making a choice?

That’s almost as dumb as suggesting she has the right to keep her body inside someone else’s body against their will.

(The more I hear from the “pro-life” movement, the more I suspect it’s all a Chinese conspiracy to make Americans so dumb that they’ll have no choice but to go to Wal-Mart and buy cheap plastic junk made you-know-where…)

plume-assassine

HAHAHA oh my goodness, do you have a comedy routine, or are you just ignorant?

An embryo is not a woman. A fetus is not a woman. Nor does an embryo or fetus have the capacity for sentience to make decisions about its body, feel pain, or even reflect on its existence. Now, a woman has the capacity for all of this. I have the capacity for sentience to make decisions about my body, I can feel pain, I can reflect on my own existence, and I can decide what uses or grows within my body. So, please, spare us your mangled, deformed version of “feminism.”

arekushieru

…And, even if a fetus was somehow able to be sentient, sapient, awake and aware, it still would not have the right to determine how its body is used at the expense of a woman’s right to do so. It seems that these antis haven’t availed themselves of reading material discussing self-defence laws (as it would apply equally to the right to self-determination). The first part of the law states that anyone may use the appropriate amount of force to defend themselves from harm, regardless of intent. It does NOT say, however, that the one who initiates and continues the attack has that right. The only time that the initial attacker can use this law to their advantage, is when they have discontinued their own attack and the first victim then begins to attack them. (I know this is an oversimplification, but you get the drift, right?)

The fetus is the initial attacker, in the case of pregnancy. The only way you could turn it around and say that the woman was the initial attacker, is if sex or pregnancy became a crime, except that, in the latter case, how does one justify continuing the crime against the victim as punishment for the perpetrator?

For those who say that a fetus shouldn’t be punished for unintentional doings, what the heck do they think they’re doing when they force gestation on women, women who are never responsible for the way their bodies work? It all comes down to which is worth more to you. The fetus or the woman. Most sane people would go with the latter. Continuing along with the theme that a fetus IS sapient, sentient, awake and aware, then the ability to choose what they do with their own body only comes after they cease their own initial attack and only if they can manage it.

truthbetold

How very mature!

goatini

And how ironic, a stone liar, with a username of “truthbetold” is complaining about cheerful little ditties about liars.

As for “maturity”, since these kind of people think that children, among other innocent crime victims, should be forced to bear the criminal rapist’s spawn, anything they have to say about “maturity” should be considered null and void by all sane and sentient persons, since to the forced-birthers, the only “maturity” that is ever needed by any female is sufficient maturity to become pregnant.

Since girls have been reaching menarche earlier and earlier in recent years, this amounts to females being considered “mature” by age 8 or 9.

goatini

oops

goatini

is not a “woman”, “man”, or “person”.

Hope that clears things up for you.

chooselife19

I am not trying to state my own self-rightousness, and I am certainly not trying to make enemies. Both of which are pointless online. There are so many things on here that can be interpreted a thousand different ways.

I respectfully read all of your responses, however I feel that they approach the issue in rather obscure ways. I apologize if I am misinterpreting it, I just feel like its being over complicated and coming from sideways directions.

The issue of abortion isn’t a matter of preference. For example, I like chocolate ice cream you like vanilla… lets fight about which one is better. lol no. The issue is about what is right and what is wrong.

Now on a side note we can all agree murder is a terrible thing. Not killing in war or self-defense, but cold-blooded face to face murder. Our natural morals, kindergarden logic, and the government all agee with this.

So is abortion murder. Is it killing a life?

First we have to ask what is life. And this is what the entire issue of Abortion comes down to, what is the unborn. Life or not? What is the unborn?

Now you personally say that it only matters if a person sapient, sentient, awake and aware to count as life. Well when does that start? Some could argue that a person isnt completely aware of their surroundings till they are two years old. Can we kill a person before then? A one and half year old? I hope we can both agree not.

So when is a person a person? Is it immediately right after they travel a mere 8 inches down a birth canal, then they are magically a human and have rights? That is my disconnect from the pro-abortion view. (BTW babies come out of the womb crying with an accent respective to their region, proving consciousness and awareness while in the womb)

When I think of this issue of abortion i try to keep an open mind and I have even been un-biased enough not to turn to the truth and wisdom from Jesus Christ on the issue, but I turn to science and biology to determine when is a person a person and when does life start.

I’ve heard some people say that after a baby develops certain body systems then they are a person. At that point then they say abortion is morally wrong. Well then I turn to the fact that a 4 year old girl doesn’t have a functional reproductive system compared to a 20 year old. Nor does she have a fully developed skeletal system.

I had alot of questions till i stumbled on this, Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard Medical School “it is scietifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception”….. Dr. Jerome LeJeune professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being”

I found a list pages long with highly esteemed doctors and professors all reporting the same thing in scientific journals. The most interesting one however was from

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, cofounder of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League). He owned and operated what was the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. After a certain point in his career his studies of the science of fetal development yielded one conclusion and reality, “modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community.” He was atheist at the time of all of these conclusions. Now he is a leader in the Pro-Life movement and has wrote several books refuting his past and advocating for the babies in the womb.

You see I am not trying to take rights or choices away from anybody, I just want there to be justice and respect for all people, from the beginning of their life to end. And taking the right to life away from a person before they see sunlight just doesn’t seem right to me.

So please, tell me where me where my disconnect is and rationally bring me to your truth if you really believe that it is morally right.

Help me understand so that we can all reach the fullness of truth together.

arekushieru

Now on a side note we can all agree murder is a terrible thing. Not killing in war or self-defense, but cold-blooded face to face murder. Our natural morals, kindergarden logic, and the government all agee with this.

I say that all killing in unjustified wars should be murder, esPECially if you want to classify abortion as murder. Now what does that say about you when you don’t agree with the first?

First we have to ask what is life. And this is what the entire issue of Abortion comes down to, what is the unborn. Life or not? What is the unborn?

Nope, that isn’t how it works. It comes down to the fact that women, just as any other group of humans, can determine who uses their body and when and how it is used, via ongoing, informed and explicit consent, even if another life depends on that usage.

If you say abortion is killing you place responsibility (blame) on women for the way their physiology works. And , as a consequence, you must place responsibility (blame) on the fetus for the way its physiology works (meaning its incompatibility with life once separated from the uterus), otherwise you are placing more value on the fetus than the woman. But, why would you even say it’s killing when all other medical and legal records disagree that disconnecting someone from their life support is killing?

Now you personally say that it only matters if a person sapient, sentient, awake and aware to count as life. Well when does that start? Some could argue that a person isnt completely aware of their surroundings till they are two years old. Can we kill a person before then? A one and half year old? I hope we can both agree not.

I wasn’t saying that it only matters if they are sentient, sapient, awake and aware to count as life, I was saying that they couldn’t choose whether the associated pregnancy was terminated or NOT. A fetus doesn’t choose when to be born, after all. Biology does that.

I absolutely believe a fetus is human life. I, however, do NOT believe that it gives a fetus more rights than anyone born.

So when is a person a person? Is it immediately right after they travel a mere 8 inches down a birth canal, then they are magically a human and have rights? That is my disconnect from the pro-abortion view. (BTW babies come out of the womb crying with an accent respective to their region, proving consciousness and awareness while in the womb)

Begging the question much? Human being can simply refer to human life or a person. *A* human = person. Human life and human are not synonymous with person, personhood or *a* human. Now, since we’ve got that out of the way, yes, legally, someone is only a person after they’ve been born alive (and, medically, one is a fetus until then) and medically a person once they’ve reached viability. These are both non-arbitrary points to determine personhood, considering the respective standpoints from which they come. However, as I’ve stated previously, that does not mean they should have more rights than anyone born, even if personhood was granted prior to those stages, and making abortion illegal at any stage would do that. You’ll have your answer to the question of why a fetus isn’t a person, when you attempt, and fail, to give me an answer to THIS question: What makes a fetus a person but doesn’t make parasitic twins, fetus in fetu, hydatidiform molar pregnancies, sperm, eggs, cells, tumours, etc… persons? And, no, it is not because a fetus is an individual human, as individuality (I’ll get into this more, later) applies more to sperm, eggs and cells than it does to a fetus.

No, it doesn’t automatically prove consciousness. Since it could also prove adaptation in physiology.

When I think of this issue of abortion i try to keep an open mind and I have even been un-biased enough not to turn to the truth and wisdom from Jesus Christ on the issue, but I turn to science and biology to determine when is a person a person and when does life start.

Even if you were arguing from that viewpoint, I could still make the case that Jesus was a feminist and therefore ProChoice. (I am a Christian, myself.)

I’ve heard some people say that after a baby develops certain body systems then they are a person. At that point then they say abortion is morally wrong. Well then I turn to the fact that a 4 year old girl doesn’t have a functional reproductive system compared to a 20 year old. Nor does she have a fully developed skeletal system.

I disagree. I believe, once it stops occupying someone’s body, there is no right to choose termination.

I had alot of questions till i stumbled on this, Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard Medical School “it is scietifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception”….. Dr. Jerome LeJeune professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being”

It seems that Doctor LeJeune is using human being synonymously with human. No one on here disagrees with that. It is scientifically inaccurate to say that a fetus is an individual human life, though. After all, if a fetus was an individual human life, it would be able to survive on its own with only the component parts that make it a member of the human species (meaning without the placenta, uterus, umbilical cord, etc…).

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, cofounder of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League). He owned and operated what was the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. After a certain point in his career his studies of the science of fetal development yielded one conclusion and reality, “modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community.” He was atheist at the time of all of these conclusions. Now he is a leader in the Pro-Life movement and has wrote several books refuting his past and advocating for the babies in the womb.

*Fetuses* not *babies* nor *child*. It looks like he was also coming from the erroneous position that abortion was permissible because a fetus wasn’t human life.

You see I am not trying to take rights or choices away from anybody, I just want there to be justice and respect for all people, from the beginning of their life to end. And taking the right to life away from a person before they see sunlight just doesn’t seem right to me.

You are. You not only take away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy but her own right to life. Pregnancy IS the second leading cause of death in women worldwide. And, by the time many complications to a woman’s life do arise, it is too late to save the woman, and, thus, the fetus. If a fetus becomes a person and abortion is killing and becomes killing, then the fetus cannot be recused of killing its host during pregnancy.

Maybe you need to do some more reading then. Or maybe you are just obtuse.

So is abortion murder

Short answer: No. I always ask the “pro-lifers” here: would you like to see 1/3 of American women in prison for life sentences?

Is it killing a life?

The question is not whether it’s living, but whether or not it is a person.

Now you personally say that it only matters if a person sapient, sentient, awake and aware to count as life. Well when does that start? Some could argue that a person isnt completely aware of their surroundings till they are two years old. Can we kill a person before then? A one and half year old? I hope we can both agree not.

It doesn’t matter whether a fertilized egg or a fetus is a person or not, because no person has the right to use my body and my organs for sustenance, against my will.

But I will tell you that an embryo or fetus is not a person because it does not have the capacity for sentience/consciousness until birth. This is science. And we cannot grant rights to a fetus without taking the right to bodily ownership/autonomy away from women. By the way, in your rhetorical question about the two-year-old, you are confusing sentience/consciousness with self-awareness. They are different concepts.

Is it immediately right after they travel a mere 8 inches down a birth canal, then they are magically a human and have rights?

Birth is entrance into pesonhood. yes, Funny how being biologically independent from a woman’s body makes all the difference! And might I also remind you that “travel[ing] a mere 8 inches down the birth canal” as you so glibly put it, is an excruciatingly painful process for the woman that should only ever be a VOLUNTARY experience. Forced birth is RAPE.

(BTW babies come out of the womb crying with an accent respective to their region, proving consciousness and awareness while in the womb)

EDIT: http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=7450 Is this the study that you are referring to? It’s interesting, but crying is not linguistic. What the researchers discovered is that some newborns cry with rising intonation, and some newborns cry with falling intonation. There is more to having an accent than intonation. The research I’ve read about fetal consciousness is that the hormonal environment of the womb prevents the fetus from ever being completely conscious, which makes sense, (so as to prevent pain during birth). http://www.ansirh.org/research/late-abortion/fetal-pain.php

It may be that listening is unconscious! Fetuses also have involuntary responses to external stimuli, which is also unconscious. Feel free to read more about it.

science and biology to determine when is a person a person and when does life start.

Science does not say anything about personhood; that is the realm of religion and philosophy. Science can tell us about life, which has been thriving in various forms for billions of years.

it is scietifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception”….. Dr. Jerome LeJeune professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being”

Once again, the question is not whether it is human or living, but whether or not it is a person. You have taken these statements out of context and capitalized on the fact that some people use “human” interchangably with “human being” which are actually two separate concepts (one being biological, the other being philosophical). I feel that in these statements they are referring to human life as it pertains to biology, not as it pertains to personhood. Human embryonic life does not equal a person.

A fetus is not an “individual” if it can only survive inside of a person’s body and is essentially hi-jacking the use of that person’s bloodstream and organs.

You see I am not trying to take rights or choices away from anybody,

You and I both know that this is a lie. I have the right to my bodily autonomy, I have the right to control what grows in or uses my body, and I have the right to choose when or whether to have children. Forcing distraught women to stay pregnant and give birth is a human rights violation and I equate it to rape. I am an indisputable person, and I will not stand idly by while people try to take away the rights of pregnant women and grant more rights to embryos and fetus that do not think or feel. I also refuse to be punished for sex or for the involuntary biological processes that take place after sex.

bring me to your truth if you really believe that it is morally right.

Help me understand so that we can all reach the fullness of truth together.

It is not our job to “educate” you. You are capable of learning on your own.

(Clarification: I am happy to educate people about contraception and accessing abortion, and I will gladly defend both from a feminist perspective… but as far as being solely responsible for explaining pro-choice/feminist philosophy to someone who obviously hasn’t taken their own time to read anything about the “other side,” well, that’s just laziness on their part.)

rebellious-grrl

Emm everything you said is WRONG and insulting!!!!!!!!! Yes, you very well can get pregnant from being raped. Were the hell do you get these ideas? A crisis pregnancy center? Please get a clue. Get a brain.

ack

I really appreciate your tone, but I’m having trouble formulating a response because the OP is about pregnancies conceived in rape. Generally, the “ethics” discussion for these types of pregnancies are very different than the “ethics” discussions for general unwanted pregnancies. This has become a very contentious thread due to the subject matter and some posts that were decidedly lacking in compassion. (And probably due to the very real war being waged on women in this country.) I’ll respond to your post as a general argument, rather than one addressing pregnancies conceived in rape.

FYI: you can edit your post to remove the boldface type. Hit the “edit” button on the bottom of your post, highlight, and hit the “B” icon.

Now on a side note we can all agree murder is a terrible thing. Not killing in war or self-defense, but cold-blooded face to face murder. Our natural morals, kindergarden logic, and the government all agee with this.

I’m not sure I actually agree with your exceptions. Killings in war are regularly defined as murder; it just depends on what side you’re on. I think Gadhafi is murdering people in Libya. He thinks he’s quashing a rebellion. Definitions of self-defense are equally problematic. For instance, women who have suffered years of abuse sometimes kill their abusers while there’s no technical immediate threat to physical safety. There have been cases where abusive men are killed while they’re sleeping. I think that’s a trauma response, and sometimes, those women shouldn’t go to prison. The courts usually disagree.

Now you personally say that it only matters if a person sapient, sentient, awake and aware to count as life. Well when does that start? Some could argue that a person isnt completely aware of their surroundings till they are two years old. Can we kill a person before then? A one and half year old? I hope we can both agree not.

I don’t think that ZBEFs aren’t alive. I do think sentience is important, but I also think (and the law agrees) that a sentient human does not have the right to use a human’s body against that human’s will. That’s why we don’t harvest organs, even after death, without the express consent of the human they’re inside. If that one and half year old has to be biologically hooked up to someone in order to survive, I think that the human the toddler is hooked up to has the right to say, “I don’t want this.”

So when is a person a person? Is it immediately right after they travel a mere 8 inches down a birth canal, then they are magically a human and have rights?

We can’t give rights to fetuses without infringing on the rights of women and girls. If we say they can use a female’s body against her will, then we’re elevating them to a status that no born human has. If I’m texting while I drive and cause a car accident, the government can’t make me donate blood to the person in the other car. They can’t take my kidney to save that person without my consent. We have a very clear stance on bodily autonomy; I don’t think that pregnant women should be treated differently.

You see I am not trying to take rights or choices away from anybody, I just want there to be justice and respect for all people, from the beginning of their life to end. And taking the right to life away from a person before they see sunlight just doesn’t seem right to me.

There are a lot of people who think that abortion is immoral, but they don’t want to make it illegal, and they don’t think they have the right to make that choice for other women. I hope you’re one of those people. Making abortion illegal, or harder to access, doesn’t stop it. Regardless of your position on the morality of abortion, empirical evidence makes it very clear that we have two choices: either abortion is legal, accessible, and safe, or it is illegal/inaccessible, and unsafe.

I also want justice and respect. I recognize that by removing the option of safe, legal abortion, we are removing justice and respect for women and girls.

els

We all like well rounded arguements, right? We all like to know that the professors that teach, the leaders in our country, and the voters have FULL information on the issues and problems, and THEN after they have researched ALL sides of the story, they make a decision. So, that being said, check out EVERY SINGLE article from that magazine before making assumptions. Too many people from opposing sides are too scared to make themselves uncomfortable and listen to things that they don’t agree with. Look at ALL sides, and then make an informed decision.

els

We all like well rounded arguements, right? We all like to know that the professors that teach, the leaders in our country, and the voters have FULL information on the issues and problems, and THEN after they have researched ALL sides of the story, they make a decision. So, that being said, check out EVERY SINGLE article from that magazine before making assumptions. Too many people from opposing sides are too scared to make themselves uncomfortable and listen to things that they don’t agree with. Look at ALL sides, and then make an informed decision. If I touched a chord, please rate my comment well. I can’t stand when people try to shut down information because of their own biases.